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Meeting     Into the Crypt     Umber Hulks    Stone Heart    Vampire    Beryn     Keep     Sand Giant
City-Between-Places     Beryn's Farm     Bog Serpent     Stronghold     2 Parties     Dog & Horn     The Cells
Escape!     Calrhuvianne     Souls     Hawker Bag     Kin's Tale     Mayor & Shopping     Dhunok Grael
Karubiat Elesis     Underground Sun     Lizardmen     The Boat     Akkenophon     Shurudien!     Ghurzak!
To Karnak     Dice     Oracle     Mogradjinn     Battle     The Hilt     Exit     Strange Allies     Ghorak Lan
Farigon     Calrhuvianne2     Wraithking     Columns     Last Column     Galent     Zeres-kai     Eyrie
Elementals!     Golem

The party move quickly to reunite and decide their next move; Suva does not have chance to send any message yet as his efforts are focussed on keeping up with his comrades! Up they plough through the trapdoor and then the spiral stairs, past the bedroom and up the step onto the walkway.

Jarek pauses as Dalrlyshana, Suva, Jiriki and Balin head onwards, with the Hawker Bag still tingling in his hand and a loose thread hanging through it, following a plan shouted through teh bag by Morin who has fastened the other end of the thread to the drawstrings of his won Hawker Bag. Jarek draws back his arm and in one swift movement pulls the thread sharply through, dragging the second Hawker Bag through the first and hurls it towards the statue. The bag seems to stop only inches from him and the air shimmers and glows all about it - this curiosity will be its own only observer, however, as Jarek catches up with the others.

Minutes later, having rushed along corridor, down stairs, through secret entrance and then along long tunnelway to the party are reunited outside in the cold afternoon air by the waterfall, Morin, Darius and Kin having jogged
downhill from the opening in the roof.

The booming walk of the vast Dreadnought is already distant as its huge gait takes it on its journey at enormous, impossible speed.

Jarek laughs as he exits the waterfall last and the party turn to look at him - he has a very odd expression on his face, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. And then it becomes suddenly evident that his right arm is missing, severed at the shoulder, a perfectly cauterised amputation. He is in no pain and there is no blood but he is suffering from the shock of the loss!

Morin is wracked with the guilt of his chaotic plan but knows there is more at stake yet: the Dreadnought grew no further but something that fuels it still remains and the party must yet again enter the stronghold.

Suva sneds a message to Beryn, 'Vast undead Dreadnought heading to Galent. If destroyed it will bring
pestilence. Too fast for us, you must stop it before it gets to city' - and then in they head again.

It takes but 15 minutes for the party to head back through the secret entrance, up the stairs, along the passages and onto the walkway, looking down into the temple room with the statue; it's enormous and will take some effort to destroy. There is no sign the Hawker Bags, nor Jarek's arm.

However, as a curious artifact left by the destruction of both, there is a gap, a small tear in the air about two inches in diameter, hovering at the edge of the walkway. Light leaks through it, hardly blazing but giving a little illumination and the outside (probably where Morin had been) can be seen through it.

Jiriki stares curiously at the rift letting light through, head moving about to check the different points of view available, but then gathers himself with glee at the thought of heading back underground and claps Balin on the
shoulder in encouragement. The party head back across the step into the room with the magical door and the bedroom beyond and down the spiral staircase into the temple room.

Then they split up: Jarek, Dalrylshana, Darius and Suva remain in the temple room as Morin, Jiriki, Balin and Kin head underground to the chamber where the "dragon" was met.

Investigating the statue is soon given up on as it is clearly too sturdy to move and does not seem to be the source of necromantic power - and besides that, Jiriki appears to indicate that his half of the party have found a third column. Unfortunately, it is warded like the first two with no obvious way to get to it.

Swiftly the party is back together, Balin in guard position using his darkvision to advantage and Kin is already pondering the impassable. Morin is scouting out the other possible routes for anything that might be of help and returns 20 minutes later.

“Back yonder,” Morin indicates the south east corridor, “is where they dump their victim's corpses, and there are too many to count...far too many."

He takes a breath of air, and expels it slowly, pushing the memory from his mind’s eye.

"Down there," he adds, indicating the eastern route, "appears to be where our disguised dragon and user of darts is hiding out.”

The rogue hands over a few grains of tobacco to Dalrylshana. "He or she either likes to inhale from the leaf, or uses it for some
other reason...is it a known ingredient for a spell, do you know? The corridor narrows dramatically, which would make it difficult to get through, but possible - although it would give our opponent an ideal opportunity to hit us with darts, I reckon."

Dalrylshana does not recognise the tobacco as a spell component but she is keen to find the character that used it in order to get the Illuminatus back. A mild argument breaks out as some of the party want to find this “dragon” whilst others try to remind them that their primary aim is to stop the Dreadnought. Inevitably, the party splits up, Morin initially showing Jarek to the point where the passage narrows – Jarek is keen to do something useful, a tint of madness edging his action following the loss of his arm. Morin returns with Jarek’s equipment, Jarek having insisted on searching beyond the passageway unhindered.

As the rest party head back to the room with the two original columns in, Darius decides he cannot leave Jarek by himself almost at the same time that Balin, moving easily with his darkvision, dashes off to aid his comrade........and search out a battle. Dalrylshana joins Darius, hoping to regain the Illuminatus and the remaining four find that there is no sign of the pit discovered here on the last visit, which was previously covered with illusory floor - the area in front of the east double doors is entirely solid now.

The doors themselves are tough to open but eventually give - after being checked for safety. There is only a couple of feet of room beyond them and then the entire corridor is collapsed, much as the other side (where the party entered Ghorak Lan) had been. However, a little lantern light shines through the northern wall, where it has been partially destroyed, and half of the party suddenly remember that the Ceredophilus came from behind an illusory wall into the room with the columns.

A quick check reveals that the illusory wall is still there; nothing solid blocks passage. More relevantly, the corridor beyond is intact.

The corridor leads around to a room which holds stairs leading down and although these seem to end with a wall, this is soon shown to be illusory in nature and a safe route to the third column has been found. Unfortunately, although Jiriki stands poised with his hammer, there is no daylight here.

It seems that the entire column will need to be removed and taken to daylight but surely this would be impossible. Time is passing dangerously and no solution seems obvious – Jiriki sets off to bring the rest of the party back to help solve the problem. Morin fidgets and checks the room for anything that might be useful but coming up empty and frustrated, then sets off to find if there is actually anything left of the Hawker bags, or any way to reverse what has been done to them.

Kin and Suva stand considering the options with the third column: the stairs down through room beyond the illusory wall where the first two columns were has given access to it but the problem remains of how to get sunlight here, now that the Hawker bags are gone. Their contemplations are broken by the return of Jiriki, leading a swift entrance of Darius, Balin, Dalrylshana and finally Jarek, who collects his temporarily abandoned belongings and tends to the remains of his arm, causing him some small pain every now and then and clearly having been bleeding a little (which it had not been previously).

Before pleasantries can be swapped, the final member of the party returns from his own searches: Morin. And he is carrying an arm.

He rushes to Jarek

"The portal is fading, and when it does, I think your arm will be permanently severed. At this point in time, I think that it isn't, just displaced. Stand still and relax your body, and if possible, imagine and focus on the fact that your arm is hanging at your side. Suva, Kin and Dal - If I'm wrong then this may need your help - healing and mending skills, possibly."

Jarek stares at the arm,a look of disdain on his face.

"You sure its mine?"he says, his nose twitching slightly.Sighing,he looks away and closes his eyes, trying to focus on being 'whole' again. Suddenly he spins round.

"Bugger the arm. Is there still light in the portal and can we get it here Morin? We must save the city!"

Morin replies, “I have tried, but it is insubstantial, just a rift in space. I had hoped to find the thread still attached, such that I might re-invert it, but there is nothing but the hole. As I watched, the hole almost closed, and the arm began to bleed - as did your shoulder, by the looks of things. There is no way to return the bags, and little enough time to fix you up. Once it goes, you will likely begin spouting blood, risking your life, so we need to fix you up now, so please stand still and do as I've asked, otherwise this might end up being attached backwards. Once we get you back whole, we can discuss the column."

Suddenly, he pauses, face and body stone still.

"Bugger!"

"Clarity of thought returns. Hold your arm in place - Suva, stand ready to heal. Kin, Dal, follow me, I'll explain as we run."

He turns to sprint from the room as the baffled party do as he asks.

Much happens in the next few minutes. Morin, Kin and Dalrylshana leave at pace - the "rift" hanging in the air near the walkway, Morin has suddenly realised, is mobile, as he had subconsciously noticed the second, connected rift (outside where the second Hawker bag had been) bobbing in the air with the breeze.

It has nothing to grasp on to but somehow is moveable just through air currents, at least, and Dalrylshana's conjured Unseen Servant is perfect to give her unexpected control over it. Meanwhile, with Jarek's arm held in place, Suva cast his divine spell. There is a crackling of the air about shoulder and arm - Suva's raised eyebrow indicates this is not normal with the spell.

Suddenly Jarek screams and blood erupts from the limb and shoulder; a limb that was somehow displaced and had caused him no pain previously now feels severed. But Suva's magic is strong and blessed and the bloodflow is stemmed almost instantly as the arm is miraculously fixed in place, painful, bruised and weak. But whole.

The remainder of the party return as fast as the unseen servant can propel the rift - a hole in reality looking out to the outside above the stronghold and being driven through the air invisibly. An odd sight! However, whatever strange magical connection separated Jarek's arm but kept him unharmed has been affected by the mending and the floating rift is clearly very unstable. Four or five times a second it pulses, shrinking to almost nothing and then back to a few inches wide, a diffuse aura about it. There may be only seconds to act but there can be no question what to do: Dalrylshana positions the rift so that the strobing light from outside meekly bathes an area of the column and Jiriki is swiftly in attendance with hammer. The first strike lands with a crack but is mistimed with the pulsing rift. The second misses the mark and tension mounts but Jiriki breathes deep, watches the changing rift and strikes true.

There is a boom throughout the cavern and Jiriki drops the hammer under the sonic impact as the rest of the party clutch their ears.

As the echo fades, a crack runs the length of the column and white forms pull them selves through the widening break. The column begins to crumble and lose pieces but even as the entire cavern seems to rumble, it pauses, held without increasing volume. A ghostly shape condenses out of the ether, its form never settling but a voice slides into the air.

“Released.”

“My thanks. I have seconds before I am granted my wished-for rest. Speak quickly your wish and I will grant the boon if it is in my power."

The rumbles in the cavern continue, held on a brink, it seems for now.